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Antonia Brico is one of the first women to conduct symphony orchestras at the start of the 20th century. A career full of pitfalls, in an environment where women were not welcome.
Antonia Brico was the first woman in a man’s world: that of conductors. All her life she had to fight to find a place. She has known misery, fame and then oblivion. Her childhood was painful: born in Rotterdam (Netherlands) in 1902 and abandoned at birth, she was brought up in the United States, by adoptive parents who mistreated her. She started out as an opener in a concert hall. Helped by a patron, she went to Europe to learn orchestral conducting.
After some years, Antonia Brico In 1930, he managed to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic (Germany), one of the most prestigious in the world, with success. “German critics say [que] young male leaders would have much to learn from this wonder. (…) She made the front page of many newspapers“, tells her biographer, Marina Chiche. When Antonia Brico returns to the United States, everyone is tearing it off.
He was promised a job as a conductor in Denver, but it was ultimately a man who was chosen. She put an end to her career, gave piano lessons and conducted amateur orchestras. The wound never seemed to heal. “I do not talk about it every day, I do not tell how my heart is broken. (…) It is a perpetual heartbreak”, she confided at the age of 72, in a documentary.